What data rates do the South Pole satellites have?
The GOES satellite operates at 1.544 Mbps into South Pole Station and 1.024 Mbps out of the Station. The TDRS satellite actually has two communications links: S-Band The S-Band link is 5 Mbps in both directions. This supports telephone calls, Internet surfing, large emails, file transfers, video teleconferencing, etc. Ku-Band The Ku-Band link currently is a 150 Mbps data link from South Pole. It also has the capability of a 7 Mbps link into the station that can be implemented at a later date. The Ku-Band link is reserved exclusively for transmission of science research data and a few other large station operation files. It is not available for the general station population. The TDRS S-Band and Ku-Band links operate simultaneously (unless there is an equipment problem).
